Program transformation

About: Program transformation is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 2468 publications have been published within this topic receiving 73415 citations.

Transformation of programs for fault-tolerance

Abstract: It has been usual to consider that the steps of program refinement start with a program specification and end with the production of the text of an executable program. But for fault-tolerance, the program must be capable of taking account of the failure modes of the particular architecture on which it is to be executed. In this paper we shall describe how a program constructed for a fault-free system can be transformed into a fault-tolerant program for execution on a system which is susceptible to failures. We assume that the interference by a faulty environment F on the execution of a program P can be described as a fault-transformation F which transforms P into a program F(P) = P + F. A recovery transformation R transforms P into a program R(P) = P[]R by adding a set of recovery actions R, called a recovery program. If the system is fail stop and faults do not affect recovery actions, we have F(R(P)) = F(P)[]R = (P + F)[]R We illustrate this approach to fault-tolerant programming by considering the problem of designing a protocol that guarantees reliable communication from a sender to a receiver in spite of faults in the communication channel between them.

Using java CSP solvers in the automated analyses of feature models

Abstract: Feature Models are used in different stages of software development and are recognized to be an important asset in model transformation techniques and software product line development. The automated analysis of feature models is being recognized as one of the key challenges for automated software development in the context of Software Product Lines. In our previous work we explained how a feature model can be transformed into a constraint satisfaction problem. However cardinalities were not considered. In this paper we present how a cardinality-based feature model can be also translated into a constraint satisfaction problem. In that connection, it is possible to use off-the-shelf tools to automatically accomplish several tasks such as calculating the number of possible feature configurations and detecting possible conflicts. In addition, we present a performance test between two off-the-shelf Java constraint solvers. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time a performance test is presented using solvers for feature modelling proposes

A general formal framework for schema transformation

Abstract: Several methodologies for integrating database schemas have been proposed in the literature, using various common data models (CDMs). As part of these methodologies, transformations have been defined that map between schemas which are in some sense equivalent. This paper describes a general framework for formally underpinning the schema transformation process. Our formalism clearly identifies which transformations apply for any instance of the schema and which only for certain instances. We will illustrate the applicability of the framework by showing how to define a set of primitive transformations for an extended ER model and by defining some of the common schema transformations as sequences of these primitive transformations. The same approach could be used to formally define transformations on other CDMs.

Software implemented method for automatically validating the correctness of parallel computer programs

Abstract: A software-implemented method for validating the correctness of parallel computer programs, written in various programming languages, with respect to these programs' corresponding sequential computer programs. Validation detects errors that could cause parallel computer programs to behave incorrectly or to produce incorrect results, and is accomplished by transforming these parallel computer programs under the control of a general purpose computer and sequentially executing the resulting transformed programs. The validation method is system-independent and is portable across various computer architectures and platforms since validation is accomplished via program transformation; thus, the method does not depend on the features of a particular hardware architecture or configuration, operating system, compiler, linker, or thread environment. The input to the validation method is a parallel computer program. The parallel computer program results from annotating its corresponding sequential computer program with a parallelism specification; the annotations describe constraints in the sequential program to be relaxed to allow the exploitation of parallelism. Validation is accomplished by detecting semantic inconsistencies between the parallel computer program and its corresponding sequential computer program. The validation method translates the input parallel computer program into a second, sequential computer program such that the second sequential computer program, when executed, detects and reports the semantic inconsistencies between the parallel computer program and its corresponding sequential computer program.

Slack Elasticity in Concurrent Computing

Abstract: We present conditions under which we can modify the slack of a channel in a distributed computation without changing its behavior. These results can be used to modify the degree of pipelining in an asynchronous system. The generality of the result shows the wide variety of pipelining alternatives presented to the designer of a concurrent system. We give examples of program transformations which can be used in the design of concurrent systems whose correctness depends on the conditions presented.